But as she watched Mrs. Sales presiding over the teacups, her scared eyes moving swiftly from the parlourmaid, entering with cakes, to Caroline, and from Caroline to Sophia, and then with added shyness to the woman nearest her own age, Rose found her opinion changing. Mrs. Francis Sales was timid, but she was not weak; the fair fluffiness of her exterior was deceptive; and while Rose made this discovery and now and then dropped a quiet word into the chatter of the others, she was listening for Francis. He had been with his wife in the garden, but he was some time in following her, and Rose knew that Mrs. Sales was listening, too. She wondered whose ear first caught the sound of his feet on the matted passage; she felt an absurd inward tremor and, looking at Mrs. Sales, she saw that her pretty pink colour had deepened and her blue eyes were bright, like flowers. She was certainly charming in her simple frock, but her unsuitable shoes with very high heels and sparkling buckles hurt Rose’s eye as much as the voice, also high and slightly grating, hurt her ear, and this voice sharpened nervously as it said, “Oh, here is Francis coming.”
No, he was not the person of Rose’s dreams, and she felt an immense relief: she had expected to be disappointed, but she was glad to find the old Francis, big, bronzed and handsome, smelling of the open air and tobacco and tweed, and no dangerous, disturbing, heroic figure.
For an instant he looked at Rose before he greeted the elder ladies, and then, as Rose let her hand touch his and pleasantly said, “How are you?” she experienced a faint, almost physical shock. He was different after all, and now she did not know whether to be glad or sorry. Unchanged, she need not have given him another thought; subtly altered, she was bound to probe into the how and why. He sat beside her on the old-fashioned couch with a curled head, and his thirteen stone descending heavily on the springs sent up her light weight with a perceptible jerk.
“Clumsy boy!” Mrs. Sales exclaimed playfully.
Rose laughed. “It’s like the old see-saw. I was always in the air and you on the ground. Is it there still—near the pigsties?”
“Yes, still there.” But this threatened to become too exclusive a conversation, and Rose tried to do her share in more general topics.